Henry and June (1990) Bio - Drama - Woman's Neo Noir Masterpiece

"Beautifully realized"

Directed by Philip Kaufman (Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1978), Raiders Of the Lost Ark, The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid) are probably his best known films and I've seen all of them. 

The screenplay was by Philip and Rose Kaufman, and based on Anaïs Nin's diaries. 

The beautiful Cinematography was by Philippe Rousselot (La lune dans le caniveau, The Emerald Forest, Dangerous Liaisons, A River Runs Through It, Interview With A Vampire)

Music was by Mark Adler.

The film stars Fred Ward (Carny, The Right Stuff, Miami Blues, Cast A Deadly Spell, Short Cuts) as Henry Miller, Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2, Pulp Fiction, Dangerous Liaisons, Sweet and Lowdown, Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 & 2) as June Miller, Maria de Medeiros (Pulp Fiction) as Anaïs Nin, Richard E. Grant (Gosford Park)  as Ian Hugo (Hugo in credits), Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, American Beauty, Se7en) as Richard Osborn, Jean-Philippe Écoffey as Eduardo Sanchez, Gary Oldman (Romeo Is Bleeding, True Romance, Leon The Professional) as Pop. With Artus de Penguern as Brassaï, Liz Hasse as Jean Brigitte Lahaie as Henry's prostitute, Féodor Atkine as Francisco Miralles Arnau. 

Fred Ward as Henry Miller

Uma Thurman as June Miller

Maria de Medeiros as Anaïs Nin

Richard E. Grant as Ian Hugo

I've never read Anaïs Nin's diaries but I have read her Delta of Venus and Spy in The House of Love the first book was a collection of fifteen erotic stories that she was hired to write for a private collector, The second book was a novel about a sexually active woman, how Noir is that?  

I honestly don't remember much about Miller's Tropic of Cancer, I may have picked it up but never remember reading it. Some works are magical when you read them at the correct point in your life where you'll get where the author is coming from. You get what you need. I'll definitely have to revisit it.

Anaïs Nin was born to Cuban parents in France. her father was a pianist and composer, her mother a singer. She spent her earliest childhood in Europe, and later moving with her mother and two brothers to New York City. She went to high school until age 16 and then started working as an artists model in 1919. She was already the proverbial "wild child," when Nin married her first husband, in 1923, an American Hugh Parker Guiler "Hugo" who was a banker. They moved to Paris in 1924 eventually moving to a house in the suburbs. This is where our film's story starts in 1931.

Story

A suburb of Paris.

We pick up the story in a publisher[s office, first seeing Anaïs in close-up her large expressive eyes peering from beneath the brim of a black cloche hat. My first impression honestly is Betty Boop. Her publisher is asking how a woman like herself is able to write so knowingly about erotica. 

Anaïs explains that when she and her husband Hugo first moved into their artists studio, she found a small forgotten box on the top shelf of a closet, that contained a trove of erotic photos and illustrations. We cut to the publisher getting himself aroused and making moves on Anaïs. 

When Hugo finally picks her up she seems a bit disheveled, Concerned, Hugo asks her what happened. She tells him that the publisher kissed her. 

She assures Hugo that she was just surprised. Later that night while laying abed next to Hugo we see her writing her famous diary and we hear her in V.O. telling us what she is writing down. The publisher did more that just kiss her, he felt her breasts and also her most "secret" place. 

We cut to the morning and Anaïs and Hugo are in their French studio apartment. 

Anaïs is typing away on one of her pieces, while Hugo is heading off to work at the bank. They are having an argument about Anaïs having to go to a stuffy bank affair. Anaïs begs off going, complaining that Hugo is even starting to smell like the bank. 

He replies that him working at the bank is allowing her to peruse her writing. He drives off and we get a stylistic shot of Anaïs as if in a cage through the iron gate of their driveway. 

We cut to a sequence of Anaïs practicing her Spanish dancing. Afterwards she's conversing with her cousin Edwardo Sanchez. She's venting about life, how she needs to be around real people who are full of life. Edwardo tells her that he's always loved her, however we see the Spanish dance instructor frowning at Edwardo, lol, jealous. 

Jean-Philippe Écoffey as Eduardo Sanchez

We cut to them continuing their talk outside Anaïs' home, and hear a ruckus that draws their attention to the driveway. Its Hugo arriving with friends, that sound loud and slightly drunk.

Hugo has brought home an American wana-be writer Henry Miller along with copyright lawyer Richard Osborne another expat. Osborn has been putting Henry up in his flat. 

Their conversation touches on Henry's work, Osborne claiming that Henry writes about fucking. Henry counters that he writes about the natural world of sex like the French have for ages, while D.H. Lawrence treats it like a ritual.  

They have lunch.

Osborne is a copyright lawyer who also fancies himself an author and playwright, he clutches, like a security blanket, a leather briefcase that he claims holds his work. He repeats the story of how one of his plays was stolen and is now doing good box office playing on Broadway. 

Later Anaïs and Henry are in the library. He asks what she writes and replies mostly in her diaries. When Henry finds a book that he's always wanted to read Anaïs tells he he can have it. When he picks it up one of the erotic cards is laying under it. Henry raises his eyebrows and answers that he'll just borrow it

At the end of the visit Anaïs offers Henry the use of her bike to ride back to Paris, and Hugo offers his instead, telling Anaïs that she needs hers since she wouldn't be able to ride his.

The sequence ends when Henry challenges Edwardo to a race back to Paris. That night Anaïs writes that "Henry is a man that life intoxicates, he's just like her., but he doesn't know it yet."

We cut to Hugo and Anaïs in their 1927 Citroën B14 Torpédo. Anaïs gets out with a typewriter, its for Henry. She drops by Osborne's flat finds the door open. She calls out, and when no one answers she carries the typewriter to Henry's desk / work area, and lays it down. 

Anaïs noses around a bit. She see a picture of June, a cockroach, and reads a bit of Henry's writing.

When she hears a noise, she follows it to a bedroom where upon opening the door she finds Osbourne in bet with three women. How noir of them. She finds out that Henry is at the cinema. 

At the cinema she spots Henry off to the side of the theater, raptly watching the screen. The actress looks a bit like June. She slides down a row of seats and sits behind Henry. When she puts her hand on his shoulder, it startles him and when he turns his head there are tears running down his cheeks. 

Henry bolts out of the theater, and is half way down the block before Anaïs catches up with him.

They pass through a break in a fence. Its a short cut. They go across an empty lot to the back door of a cafe Henry frequents. 

There  in this cafe, Anaïs coaxes out Henry's story of how he met June and we go into a flashback to the inside of a dime a dance joint up on Times Square. It's here that Henry meets June. She tells him a bullshit origin story that he realizes comes from the plot of a film he saw.

He relates that they get married and June brings home a lesbian artist Jean who makes puppets, soon he supporting the both of them.

He becomes suspicious one night when June comes in with a fistful of money and tells him to go to Paris to write. He wasn't born yesterday and tells her "anything you want," and splits. He tell us he doubled back and peeps in on his own apartment balancing from between a ledge and the edge of the buildings fire escape. 

Through the window he sees "Pop," who June has told him is a "patron of the arts" sitting on their sofa while he uses his cane to not only flick open her robe but apparently other things as well. Its a humorous sequence because he while he's peering through the window the wind blows his tie into the room and when Jean slams the partially open window shut, his tie is caught.

Liz Hasse as Jean

So its Henrys story of June filtered through Anaïs and in turn through the writers and director, and its done in a great Noir visual style. Bravo.  

It starts to go "domestically" Noirsville when June actually does shows up.

Noirsville

This is a great insightful film for mature audiences that gives you the Noir reality of mid 1930s Paris, and the force that drove an American anti hero fighting by writing for your freedom of speech named Henry Miller. 

Its Noir but about real life Noir. It's not about made up detectives and femme fatales, where the good guys always win, but the real deal. Shit happens. Henry, June, Anaïs, and Hugo, were real people Noir femmes and Noir Hommes and their Noir situations involved the complexities of desire, madness, creativity, life. 

Think about it this is the same zeitgeist from which the original French Film Noir sprung. A dreamlike decadence, where everyday existence was hardboiled, hardcore, exciting, creative, spontaneous, and unpredictable. 

The entire cast is great, Fred Ward is very compelling, all the other performances excellent, and very believable. 10/10

This is a beautiful film that is unfairly being neglected because it's obviously not going to be for everyone's tastes. It was actually the first film to receive an NC-17 rating in lieu of an "X." But in reality its nowhere near that and tame by todays standards. It fits in thematically with films like Barfly, and Tales Of Ordinary Madness, and you can even add Hammett. I haven't seen the directors Hemingway & Gellhorn, it sounds like a similar story dynamic. 

More from Philip Kaufman here

"Here is a book which, if such a thing were possible, might restore our appetite for the fundamental realities. The predominant note will seem one of bitterness, and bitterness there is, to the full. But there is also a wild extravagance, a mad gaiety, a verve, a gusto, at times almost a delirium."                        (preface to Tropic of Cancer written by Anaïs Nin in 1934)